IT Services

Setting a New Login Password

This page is for setting your password on the Engineering Department Central
Computing System. This password is used for the DPO terminals, remote
access via gate, smb-serv,
admin-fileserver, editing web pages and research machines in several
divisions. It is an important password that you must keep safe.

This password is nothing to do with Raven, Hermes or the MCS. To change those,
read infosheet IS6.

If you are having difficulty changing password with the instructions on this
page, please contact the helpdesk who will be happy to advise.

We strongly recommend that you make your Engineering and Hermes passwords
different from each other and neither password should be the same as any password used on a social
networking site.

Run PuTTY from the Windows Start Menu. If this is not installed on your machine, download PuTTY here.

Enter the host name, gate.eng.cam.ac.uk, and click on
Open.

If this is the first time you have used PuTTY to login to gate, PuTTY
will put up a security alert. Click on Yes if the fingerprint matches
ad:66:8e:86:11:7d:a9:c6:49:61:53:e4:32:42:a3:1d
orkRkSJNfuw1WRWNUTzUvYhzb3DQd0arp91S0Hs0UoxYY.

Login using your crsid and current password (nothing will be echoed to the screen when you type this in).

Type 'passwd' (without the quotes)

When prompted for 'Kerberos 5 Password', use the same password that you just used
to login.

Launch a terminal window. This might have one of the following icons, but
it depends on which type of Linux system you are using:
Under GNOME, you can right-click on the background (not inside an
application's window) and select Open Terminal.

In the terminal window, type 'ssh -l userid gate.eng.cam.ac.uk' (without the
quotes).
Replace userid with your userid, which is the bit
before @cam.ac.uk in your email address.
(Note: You can skip this step if you use a Linux terminal in the DPO.)

You may get a message similar to:

The authenticity of host 'gate.eng.cam.ac.uk' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is ad:66:8e:86:11:7d:a9:c6:49:61:53:e4:32:42:a3:1d.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?